It Feels Better Biting Down
by I.D.Gr
Summary: His story began when hers ended. The first in a series of vignettes of the MTR world. Rating will vary per chapter. (Story revised since it was published)


**A/N 1/2 **Now friends, I did what I said I wouldn't do and edited this baby until 99% of it is completely new material. I'm pretty glad I did, though, because this one feels much cleaner and less… abstract. Enjoy.

Higher rating because with a bigger word count comes scarier ideas. Triggers for swearing, abuse, violence, tocophobia, blood, mild gore, alcohol and, well you get the picture. (More complete list of triggers on Tumblr post of this fic)

She bit her lip. Blood trickled down her jaw but it was all the same to her. Her hands and her feet were numb. _Deep breaths, deep breaths._ A shiver ran through her spine. It twisted her guts in knots, whether from this ice-cold rain or her guilty conscience she didn't know. Hair clung to her face and her pathetic rag of a blanket did nothing to ward off the wind chill. Her socks, even her underwear were all sodden to the core. Still, she made sure to keep a steady pace as her hands clenched the soggy corners of a cardboard box. It was too late turn back now.

Hands in blue rubber gloves carefully held a scalpel, gliding the blade across bulging skin. The sheen of metal interrupted by dark blotches, stains on crisp white fabric. The room was dark, illuminated by one white fluorescent bulb, it was silent but for the hum and beeps of the machines. They all knew their job, and if anyone so much as whispered a question they didn't deserve to be within a hundred mile radius of the operating room. She would see to that personally.

This was all for the best, empty words. Her jaw clenched and blood stained fabric. She looked up to the black sky amid the rain falling down around her. The water thinned the red stains on her face. It was pouring; she felt she was drowning, each drop hitting her like an arrow.

There were noises in the back of her ear. Probably some kids out late at night, maybe a cat, maybe nothing. She couldn't take that chance, he could still be following. She made this decision but what other choices were there really? What hope did it have if it stayed with her? She held the child once more, their heartbeats next to each other, then with a deep breath, placed it back in its box.

_Such a pretty face. You remind me of someone… someone I lost._

She set her tools down and looked up abruptly. 'Did you say something?'

The other surgeons paused, perplexed at the sudden interruption. 'No,' said one of them, arm cautiously outstretched to hand her a cotton ball with his thongs.

Must be the lights. Maybe they needed a bulb with a lower wattage. Sweat dripped down her forehead and she squinted her eyes, biting her lip. She'd always leave the OR with of a bit of her own blood as well as the patient's on her clothes. It was that one little quirk of hers that mystified her co-workers. Here was the world's youngest neurosurgeon; she could Nancy Drew her way through the human body with only a toothpick and a bobby pin like it were a maze on the back of a cereal box, but she couldn't control her damn overbite. She didn't know why that was, but it began since before she could talk. She had to keep her lip in check, as if it would run away with words she couldn't take back.

_I'm not stupid. I know it's you. You're so predictable._

Like many things, she kept this to herself.

_Blood runs thicker than water, you can't hide from me._

When the bulbs shut and the light boxes switched off and the x-rays filed away, she peeled the rubber from her hands. Cotton balls dabbed the blood on her lip and away they'd go in the trash before she washed her hands.

No. NO, NO, NOnonono!

A shriek so loud forced itself out of her lungs. She had rebuilt her life from ashes only to feel herself slipping at the sight of a single number on the HCG test. It was just as she'd suspected, the signs were too clear to ignore and yet that final result was the only thing that could shatter her denial. Test tubes and glass shattered, tears flowed freely. Papers flew, a microscope fell, and a metal cart toppled over. It was his, it had to be his. Fuck.

_Him_–she dare not say his name even to herself–he was the shadow lurking under her bed, and in the closet. _He_ was the one who followed her through the day and breathed goose bumps down her neck by night. He took without giving, hollowed her out until she was bone and blood. And though he apologised to her face it always seemed he spoke only for himself.

She closed her eyes and saw an image of a figure growing larger from where it stood in her window. It was upon her—She gasped an intake of breath. She couldn't breathe. She tried to steady herself by leaning on a table only to slip and collapse to the floor. For hours she lay in a foetal position, finding comfort in the cold tiled floors.

_I'm a lover not a hater. Is that any way to treat a lover? _Your_ lover?_

Her body was frozen and contorting. Suffocating. He still had a hold on her, dragging her by the hair back into darkness. Others came to calm her down and an intern accompanied her to a taxi. People out in the hall at least had the decency to pretend they hadn't seen their superior crying on the floor with drool over her blouse. The same woman, in fact, who spent hours every morning trying to tame her blonde frizzles into the tightest of buns. No strand was to be left loose. But right now she was in too much shock to think of hair.

_Baby. Come back to me. You've changed. Now where is that sweet little girl I knew?_

She had such a bright future, everyone said so, and for once she thought she might agree. After Harvard, she'd escaped with a new name and address and a degree. Essays and studies credited to her pseudonym, the very nature of her work broke records and she thought… She thought she might _have_ a future. Like dead tissue, she'd grow beyond the pain. But he wormed his way into her life through the cracks, like he always did. He found a way to destroy her.

She bit her lip.

She'd been given a few days off and a promise to discuss maternity leave upon her return. Once upon a time she might've wanted a child, one that felt like her own, with a person she could build a life with. It was a typical, unambitious, white picket fence fantasy, but it excited her almost more than a Nobel Prize. Watch what you wish for, so they say.

Maternity leave. Could she be a mother, really? To _his_ child? Though, she had to admit the poor thing was as much hers as it was his. That was what made this so difficult. A child brought into the shattered remains of her life. Such disturbing circumstances… It wasn't much of a promise for someone who wasn't even born yet. She'd considered abortion, and after performing ones on countless patients in similar situations, you'd think the answer was obvious.

For days she remained indecisive. She thought if she kept this up, maybe she'd wake one morning with a conclusion but all that happened was she'd open her eyes with a headache and notice a bottle of sherry next to an empty glass. People thought it excessive, but after five late nights in a row at the OR you might understand. Without thinking, she poured herself some and stopped as she brought the cup to her lips. Down it went into the sink. On the second day, she did the same, this time getting as far as letting it swim around her mouth and then spitting it back out before it left her tongue. On the third day, she threw the bottle out, dumping the contents into the toilet as well as all her cigarettes and some of her coffee.

_You little cunt. You've been naughty. I should punish you for what you've done._

This wasn't her final decision, she'd assure herself as she left the grocery store with a cart full of orange juice. It was… a precaution. Her jaw clenched, teeth cutting her lip. She could always go back and do the right thing.

She'd awoken again at four in the morning, hair in a tussle and wrinkles on only one side of her otherwise pristine bedding. It was the same nightmare; a shadow and voices obscuring a window until darkness overcame… For a doctor such as herself, days off were unheard of. Her world consisted only of the fluorescent lights in the OR, her bed and everything in between. She was unaccustomed to wasting so much time. She sat up to see the deep blue of dawn shine through her window. The shadows of tree branches stretched across the linoleum floors. Her hand felt empty without a cigarette or at least a scalpel. She bit her lip.

_Look what you made me do._

Work was no different, but there at least she had a purpose. She was sick of being alone with her thoughts, lazing on a couch in front of a coffee table filled with empty takeout. Waking up anywhere from four am to seven pm so uncoordinated she'd stub her toe three times on the same table leg. She tried to ignore the fact that she had no friends, no family worth mentioning and _he_ certainly didn't count, and only people at work she spoke to often enough to consider acquaintances. And a pet cat that died last month.

No one was there to pull her hair back when she missed the toilet by mere inches. Her fingers wouldn't steady, more air was coming in than out. The smell of vomit mixed with carbon dioxide. She opened a window.

At the hospital, she was at home in her lab coat, hair once again in order surrounded by perfectly white tiled grids. Her mind, however, usually so lucid in the midst of an operation didn't return with the rest of her body. It was lost in a fog, distracted. Steel sharp focus diluted into clumsy forgetfulness and some of the students took notice. If she didn't make a decision soon she would have to go on maternity leave anyway.

Over the next few weeks she took tests, x-rays, and more tests. People thought the baby might come out blue after all this poking and prodding, but she insisted. She was waiting, watching for any little sign. The smallest hiccup or malady or deformation. Something that would confirm to her that this was wrong, that it was all wrong and she should go back.

_How dare you._

She lay on down with her blouse unbuttoned and cold gel on her skin for the ultrasound. She was still biting her lip.

'I—,' said a nurse, Carla, clearly unable to hide her uneasiness. It wasn't her right to be uneasy, in a perfect world one would never have to be so intimate with someone like Carla. 'I hope you don't think me rude but,' she paused to swallow, 'I was wondering about the father—

'I have no father.'

'I, um, I meant about the baby's father.'

'He's unable to be a part of this.' The same words she'd parroted for days. Curtly changing the subject, she didn't want this to be a complete waste of time. 'I don't want to know the gender. I just–is there anything wrong with it?'

Carla had her mouth open with a response, but she thought better than to say anything. She wheeled her chair over to the charts. 'S—um, _they_ are perfectly healthy. Nothing wrong.' She forced a smile.

'You're certain? My ankles feel a bit swollen, that's a sign of toxaemia.'

'I am certain and no,' said Carla making a show of examining her ankles, 'they seem fine. Listen, we've already gone through this and several urine tests. Your child is going to be perfectly healthy, no signs of infection or deformation. Everything is as it should be. This isn't Lucifer's child over here and you're no Rosemary. _It's ok._'

Carla thought she was being comforting.

She supposed that was it. All the tests came back negative and to the outside world there was no reasonable reason for a mother to-be to turn back now. Unless you had a conscience… At the second trimester, she packed a suitcase and contacted a midwife two towns over. If she was going to follow through, she needed to be away from it all, her co-workers, her neighbours, scholars and students alike. All those people whispering with brief glances to her stomach, hidden behind a veil of etiquette. More importantly it was a safe place away from him, for however long it took him to find her once again. She didn't know why she didn't call the police. It would certainly be the more sensible option with a "baby on board". Somehow she didn't trust herself enough.

They say that the pain of labour disappears at the sight of your new-born. She could not disagree more. Her little embryo was impatient, it became a pre-term birth and she was admitted to the Midtown Hospital. So much for the midwife. All hospitals were the same, they each had the same reception with the same carpeted floors and uncomfortable chairs and IV sacs and white tiles, but it was a foreign hospital nonetheless. It wasn't _her_ hospital.

She didn't want to look at it. She didn't want to know its gender or give it a name. She didn't even stop calling it "it". Couldn't be clearer to her that this baby shouldn't have happened in the first place, why make everything more difficult with sentimentality.

Nails dug into her palm, teeth into her lip as she was wheeled over to a bed. She was unusually tense for someone who just stepped out of the OR, so to speak, under heavy medication. The doctor wanted to keep her longer than the typical three days, charts and tests indicated an abnormally weak immune system. She acquiesced knowing well that regardless of her health, she would leave the second the baby could survive outside its incubator.

For the first time in days, she dared look at the infant's face. The perfect picture of innocence. Maybe that was why she did it. Just to see if something pure and new could come out of this mess. She could prove to the world that she had done something selfless. She turned to the subject in question, face was so round and smooth, full of baby fat and with a small tuft of blonde hair atop the head. It had her hair but not the brown of her eyes. The baby's eyes were electric blue irises. So expressive, so vivid. Yet they reminded her of him. Him and the bruises he gifted her with, the blue that once painted her arms and legs.

Her eyes went wide, her throat dry and blood on her teeth. Slowly she leaned closer to the baby and whispered in a low voice, 'You. You and he, you have the same eyes. Do you know that?' She paused as if waiting for a response. She thought she heard a gurgle, but maybe it was her imagination. 'The same ones that stared at me so intently that night.' The baby looked up at her puzzled, but it knew to keep quiet. Her gaze unfocused, she spoke more to herself than anything. 'I remember. The window was open. I felt the cold but I thought it was from the outside. I went to the night table. Poured myself a glass before I dropped it and it shattered. It's not often you find people lurking in your windows. He'd found me and he wanted to gloat. He came close to my ear, told me things that only he could. He cupped his hands to my cheek and surrounded me in his arms. I held my breath and bit into the scab forming on my lip, a bad habit I would not advise for your still-developing tissue by the way. When I tried to break free he struck me with something sharp. It was a syringe. Like a ragdoll, he laid me there on my own bed. I didn't make a sound. I couldn't. Then I woke up with a bloody foot and glass shards in my heel. And you.' Carefully she turned back to see the little one, staring at her so innocently. It started to cry. 'Shh, shh,' she whispered, stroking its head and wiping tears off cheeks. 'I'm sorry. Shh. I'm sorry…' She stretched her lips into a bloody smile. 'It's for the best.'

It wasn't your typical birds and the bees talk, she hoped to God it found a nice home with a nice family and maybe a dog. It was then that she realised how badly she wanted to keep the child. To raise it as her own, to add laughter and smiles to her apartment where crayon drawings and glitter and Mother's Day cards and toys would litter the floors. She wanted to hear the first words, the report cards and the bedtime stories. She wanted to be the one to say, 'Oh they grow up so fast!' and smother it with hugs and kisses into adulthood, even on its wedding day. She wanted to see it grow up. She wanted to feel the accomplishment of raising a life, not just saving one with test tubes and CT scans. She needed another life to complete her. But what could she offer in return? Food. College tuition came easy. A place to stay while your mother works herself to sleep. Stability. A perfect trail for him to follow… No. She did not deserve this baby just as it did not deserve her. While _he_ certainly was no father, neither was she a mother. The child needed a better life. Breaking this cycle of misfortune was only possible without her.

She wanted to leave a note, maybe a cheque, anything more than a raggedy old blue blanket in a soggy box. But she couldn't, the furthest this baby was from her, and _him,_ the better.

She took one last look at the brick building. The 6th Street Orphanage, read the plaque at the front door. Not one to be spontaneous, especially in these circumstances, she had spent hours of research on orphanages in the area. Two of the three had closed down which left her with 6th Street as her only option. It was once a religious institution now turned family-run business. The current matron was a Miss Mildred Duffy who had her degree in early childhood development. The children were given three meals a day, outings to parks and museums, holiday activities and the orphanage was inspected on a yearly basis. Adoptive parents, in turn went through a thorough background check followed by bi-yearly inspections from a social worker for three years. Everything was in order. The small neighbourhood community even ran a Christmas drive for donations, non-perishables and toys for the children.

It was no Ritz but likely it was a better home than she could ever offer. If she looked closely, out on the sidewalk, and peeking through from the backyard, was a scattering of tattered old toys that weren't put away. Yes, she thought, a child could be happy here.

With a quick glance over her shoulder, she walked down the steps into the sidewalk. Her shoulders hunched, and she curled her blanket over her. Arms now empty, she wandered the sidewalk with no particular destination in mind. Her gut wrenched, and yet it felt hollow. She dared not cry. What right did she have when she wasn't the one abandoned in the cold rain? Drops clung to the edge of her eyelashes. She blinked. It's for the best. It was all for the best.

Goodbye, little one.

Hours later, she kept on, aimlessly putting one foot in front of the other until she found herself in a park. She was far enough from the orphanage by now. Let him find me, she thought. I'm tired of running. He can't have what he wants. Not anymore.

Her feat was so small, but she felt an immaculate weight lift off her shoulders. Flying life a feather, she collapsed in soft green hills. The dirt, better than her legs, could carry her. A morning chill kissed her cheeks while she allowed herself to sleep. The sky was fading to a soft blue as the sun made its way to the horizon. The rain had abated. It was over. She would never see her baby again. She exhaled, lying in the grass, waiting for a tomorrow that would never come.

Title / fic partially inspired by Lorde's _Biting Down_

**A/N 2/2**

Aren't we glad Lewis never got around to testing the memory scanner on himself? Or maybe you're just glad I was never a writer on MTR. Anyway, Mother stories are damn hard and I have so much respect for people who can pull it off without it feeling completely out of place from the film, y'know? This version is mega lengthy as opposed to the extremely choppy first draft, which I hope doesn't mean it has the opposite problem of dragging things out too much.

Tell me what you think, and if you've read the first version, how does it compare? Feel free to fact-check me on my limited knowledge of the medical world and adoption process, too.

PS Possible/future one-shots will still be added to this fic as new chapters when I eventually turn it into a one-shot series so that's why it's 'incomplete'. This particular one-shot, though, is done-zo.


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